


change your name or change your mind (and leave this fucked up place behind)

by svladcjelli



Category: Fight Club (1999)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svladcjelli/pseuds/svladcjelli
Summary: Solace can be found, even after Project Mayhem.
Relationships: Narrator/Marla Singer
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	change your name or change your mind (and leave this fucked up place behind)

**Author's Note:**

> straight people united. written 4 my marla heart emoji

For once, it was quiet in his head. He looked around the dingy room – well, who was he to gauge ‘dingy’ after living in the Paperstreet house for so long? At least the mattress underneath him was dry and firm enough to support the weight of his body without springs digging into the flesh of his back.

I am Jack’s spine finally catching a break.

Right, the mattress - that was a story of its own. After the events of Project Mayhem (thinking about it forced dread in his stomach, almost sickening), Marla insisted he stay with her – a period of laying low until they could cultivate enough money for a better place. He tried to decline the offer at first, insisting she’d be better off without him - but in the end, who would turn down a safe place to go home to with a self-inflicted gunshot wound? He considered going back to Paperstreet, but what would he gain other than fabricated memories and a mind wracked with guilt?

Marla’s apartment was neater than the Paperstreet house but muckier than his old apartment. Part of him missed the simplicity of living surrounded by Ikea-branded furniture and ordering from catalogues, but he guessed that part of him had died along with Tyler.

So, he found himself in Marla’s bed in the mid-afternoon. The room smelled of mildew and cigarette smoke and he supposed it was true to Marla’s character.

He still received his advance pay and shared the money with Marla to buy food instead of living off food stamps. She still stole clothes from laundromats to sell for a few extra dollars, and he considered it was one of the many things that remained the same.

Even after everything – Project Mayhem, the Paperstreet Soap Company, Tyler Durden – she remained the same. She still attended support groups and talked of death as if were nothing and had a diet consisting of cheap cigarettes and sparse meals. She still looked at him with the same intrigue, same annoyance and adoration all the same - and there was something about her he could never place and he realised that maybe he never would. But maybe that wasn’t so bad - around her, everything was familiar. She was his constant. 

He heard the lock of the apartment door unclick and fell asleep once again. He’s been doing that a lot these days.

I am Jack’s regained ability to sleep.

The next time he woke up, Marla was shaking him. His brain felt like cotton and God, he didn’t want to move.

For a second time, Marla shook him a bit rougher, “Wake the fuck up. You’re gonna get blood on the pillowcase.”

Huh. He forgot about the healing hole in his mouth – the metallic taste around the right side of his face began to make sense. He sat up slowly, slow enough for Marla to light a cigarette. He wondered if she could see the exhaustion in his eyes as she blew smoke into the air.

She cupped the right side of his face and turned it so she could see the bloodied gauze in clear view.

“You must’ve rolled onto it while you were sleeping all day, idiot,” She popped the cigarette back in her mouth, “Now the wound’s re-opened.”

“Mm.” Frankly, he was too groggy to care.

She opened a Ziploc bag full of medical supplies, pulling clean(-ish) gauze and Neosporin. He winced as she began to pull the old gauze off the side of his face.

“Come on, hold still.”

The hole in his cheek felt sticky. It was warm, but not enough to be desensitsed to the warmth of Marla’s fingers. The wound itself had pretty much stopped bleeding on its own but it was still open enough to be re-bandaged. She put Neosporin on the gauze before securing it onto his face. Through his slight daze, he didn’t really feel it.

While she worked, he stared. She was beautiful and he wondered if she knew that. 

She cupped his face to look into his eyes once more. This time, he could tell she saw his tiredness.

“Your face is stupid, you know that?”

He smiled - something short of a laugh - and so did she. He hadn’t been doing that often – he cycled between sleeping and waking only to eat. In many ways, he was still recovering - but not just the gunshot wound in his mouth, but from the absence of Tyler in his everyday life. She knew this better than anyone.

She tapped his nose when she was done – a subtle form of her affection, almost like a kiss but without the intimacy. He knew that. (And maybe loved her a bit more for it.) 

Marla closed the Ziploc and sat with him on the bed. Technically it was her bed, after all. She placed her hand onto his, gripping it just enough for him to feel the pressure.

I am Jack’s mending heart.

With her, it was going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> waaah!! thanks for reading!!!!!!!


End file.
